A new specie of fossil hedgehog has been found in British Colombia, Canada. This 52 million year old relative of the modern hedgehog was tiny. With a reconstructed body length of 5 - 6.5 cm, Silvacola acares was about the size of small modern shrews. This tiny hedgehog would have inhabited a forest quite unlike anything on Earth today. Palms grew alongside spruces suggesting the climate was close to being tropical (at 54 degrees north!) . With a favourable climate, it is unlikely that this tiny hedgehog would have ever had to hibernate. With warm temperatures insect prey would have been available all year round.

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Paleontologists have discovered fossil remains of two previously unknown mammals that lived in what is now British Columbia in Canada during the early Eocene, about 52 million years ago – a tiny hedgehog species named Silvacola acares and a tapir-type herbivore of the genus Heptodon.